In regards to trimming spares...it is a lot of work initially and can be pretty confusing! With each rack that is trimmed, it does become much easier.....I now take only about 5 minutes to trim em up. Matter of fact, I just trimmed up 6 racks yesterday for a neighborhood cook-out! All at 7am I might add!!!
Here is what I do:
I first trim the small end of the rack. I try to trim so the rack is within the 18 1/4" of the WSM. This means I must sometimes cut off 1 of the "real" bones at the small end. I cut this piece all the way up through the "brisket" piece...this gives you a pie shaped piece of meat with some bones in it.
I then remove the "skirt"...this is the flap of meat on the BONE side towards the smaller end of the rack. You want to remove this because it often hides some pockets of fat!! I then trim any fat away that lies underneath the skirt. DO NOT throw this skirt away!! Cook it up...it is ALL meat! It doesn't take long either!
Then I remove the membrane from the bone side of the rack.
The last step is trimming through the brisket bone....by far the hardest part of the trim! You will be going through some cartiledge so use a strong bladed knife..I use a 10" Chef's knife. Turn the rack so the bone side is up...then you can just follow the tip of the bones to determine where to make your cut. If you follow the rib ends, you leave those cartiledge pieces on the chine bone.
After I have trimmed away the chine bone, I then will trim any large amount of fat from the rack. Some need LOTS of trimming, others need NO trimming. Just be careful to not trim away ALL the fat!
In the end I have 3 pieces of trim.......the small end of the rack, the skirt meat and the long chine bone. ALL of these are cooked(they are all pure meat!!) and I then pull apart and offer up for munchies.
Eventually I will have some pics to share....unless Chris beats me too it!!
All in all, I always prefer my butcher to do the above trimming...it takes about 30 seconds with a butcher's saw and he doesn't charge me any extra. However, Kroger will usually run these cryovaced racks on sale for .99 a pound. That is cheap enough to take butcher lessons!!
Good Luck!!
Stogie